


just a little bit (happy)

by WeAreTomorrow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A+ being ironic, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/M, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of canon violence, Mistaken Identity, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, PTSD, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates, Tony Stark Has A Heart, everyone is self-sacrificing and it's stupid, implied Steve Rogers/Howard Stark - Freeform, seriously he fails
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-08-16 03:31:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8085049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeAreTomorrow/pseuds/WeAreTomorrow
Summary: “I thought Rogers zero-ed out the year before he enlisted?” He asks his boss, a little annoyed to have one of the facts on the back of his trading card be proven wrong. “It was never disclosed to the public, but Shield kept—““Shield did.” Fury says.At the dark look Fury shoots him, Coulson forces himself to swallow back his questions for a more ideal time. Usually that means a successful coup of a third world country and a lot of authentic vodka. He makes a mental note on his calendar for Thursday night.---Or, the one in which Tony knows that Steve is his soulmate and doesn't tell him because of reasons.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be like two pages. Now it's three times that and only halfway done. Hope you enjoy.

“There’s not much more we can do for him.”

 

The doctor doesn’t meet their eyes and Coulson doesn’t blame him. Who wants to be the one to tell the Director that Captain America, miraculously recovered and _alive_ , will not be waking up in time for Fury’s carefully laid plans?

 

Besides him, his boss radiates displeasure like a nuclear reactor in meltdown. He hates going back to the drawing board.

 

“Not much more, doctor? That’s not _nothing_ more.” Fury has a habit of stating everything like a God-given fact. It makes it very hard to disagree with him. “Do you like your job, Richard?”

 

The doctor splutters. Fury makes vague threats. Coulson says nothing.

 

All in all, not much different then their last few visits.

 

Coulson sighs, slipping a hand inside his pocket to run his fingers lightly over the tops of his plastic encased trading cards. He’d spent his first Shield paycheck on an engraved special silver-issue Steve Rogers card. It was one of only 50 similar prints that depicted a pre-serum Captain America.

 

The body of the man on the bed before them now couldn’t have been more physically different. Even hooked to multiple whirring machines, his presence seemed to fill the space with an easy confidence. A perfect human specimen.

 

 _Still_ , he thinks to himself. There was something fragile about his face. Not a weakness, but a delicacy. A thoughtfulness not usually found in ones born strong. _He knows what it’s like to struggle_ , Coulson realizes and withdraws his hand from his pocket. He wipes his damp palm against his trousers. _Let’s hope he continues to fight._

 

“Is he or is he not perfectly healthy?” Fury demands to know.

 

“Of course sir, but please understand—“ The doctor is trying to reason with Fury, who’s got that stubborn look in his good eye that usually means Coulson is about to be doing a _lot_ of paperwork.

 

Coulson moves closer to the bed and takes a seat in the only chair. He studies the still face of his childhood hero, watches the minute flaring of his nostrils as the man on the table breathes out and compares the real thing to the likenesses he has been collecting over the years. With the slack expression of unconsciousness, the Captain looks younger. _Younger than me_ , Coulson thinks suddenly and it makes him feels tired.

 

A sudden _ding_ makes him look up. Unlike all the other hospital machinery, that is a sound every person of every age would recognize.

 

Before the doctor can stop him, Coulson folds back the white sheet covering Steve Roger’s right arm and turns his wrist to reveal a string of glowing numbers against his pale wrist. 00. 24. 00.

 

As Coulson stares, the numbers begin to tick down. A frown creases his forehead as he looks to Fury, who seems equally nonplussed.

 

“I thought Rogers zero-ed out the year before he enlisted?” He asks his boss, a little annoyed to have one of the facts on the back of his trading card be proven wrong. “It was never disclosed to the public, but Shield kept—“

 

“Shield did.” Fury says.

 

At the dark look Fury shoots him, Coulson forces himself to swallow back his questions for a more ideal time. Usually that means a successful coup of a third world country and a lot of authentic vodka. He makes a mental note on his calendar for Thursday night.

 

“But how?” Coulson asks the doctor, who looks like he’d rather be dangling over a pit of lava than facing the increasinglyirate-looking Director right now. “I thought timers couldn’t reset. Can a person have more than one soulmate?”

 

The doctor shakes his head vehemently.

 

“It’s not possible.” The harassed looking man spreads his hands in a gesture of frustration. “We don’t know what’s happening. It could be that being frozen for so long is causing a malfunction or that we’re dealing with an unidentified virus, which could also be keeping the patient dormant. We just don’t have enough information. We’ve been running tests but, as you can see, Rogers is in perfect health.”

 

The doctor almost looks annoyed about it.

 

“But still..” The man hesistates. Fury twitches towards him slightly, as if fighting the urge to slap the information out of him.

 

“What?” His boss demands, baring his teeth.

 

“We’re hopeful that when the timer zeroes out, it could jolt him out of his coma.”

 

Slowly, terrifying, Fury starts to smile. The doctor actually takes a step back but the Director ignores him completely and checks his watch.

 

“Coulson,” Fury says, sweeping out of the room, “Push our plan back by half an hour.”

 

Getting to his feet reluctantly, Coulson pulls the bed sheets back into place and follows his boss back to work with an internal sigh. _So_ much paperwork.

 

\--

 

 

\--

 

It’s another shitty day in the shitty week of the exceptionally shitty life of Tony Stark.

 

With a half-swallowed groan, he finishes his glass of whiskey. He leaves the open bottle of red wine alone though and surveys the aftermath of the living room through the haze of his pulsing hangover. He brushes off a rose petal clinging to his knee and it drifts to the ground to land in a pile with the others.

 

The candles have burned themselves down to little stubs on the table still full of chocolate cake and more rose petals and the cheesy HAPPY ANIVERSARY card that sings when you open it. He’d even remembered not to order strawberries this time.

 

“JARVIS, what time is it?” Tony asks, and covers his eyes again.

 

He’d fallen asleep on the couch after she’d left, thinking that maybe she’d change her mind and come back and he wouldn’t be able to hear it in his bedroom if she knocked so he’d stayed, hoping, until he was too drunk to make it back to his room anyway. His neck hurt from the angle and he had a golf-ball size bruise forming below his ribcage from when he’d rolled off the couch and hit the side of the oddly-shaped metal table. Fucking modernism.

 

“It’s 1:36AM, sir.” JAVIS replies, without the hint of disapproval he’s come to expect. But then, JARVIS had been unusually reserved since last night. Tony wonders, somewhat hysterically, if he’s programmed his AI with enough independence to leave him too. “You have nearly two hours until your timer zeroes out.”

 

Tony groans. “Not you too, JARVIS. Please, it’s too early.”

 

But he can’t stop himself from glancing at his newly exposed wrist and the glowing countdown. 00:02:15.

 

His heart clenches and Tony imagines that for a moment his reactor glows a little brighter to compensate. Unbidden, Pepper’s hurt words and teary face come back to him, a hollow after-image when he closes his eyes.

 

Of all the fucking timing. They’d been sharing a romantic anniversary dinner a few days early since Pepper needed to be out of the country and Tony had an important showcase on their actual date.

 

Tony had been, badly, spoon-feeding Pepper bits of cake while she giggled uncontrollably and ended up with most of the frosting on her face when that telltale _ding_ went off. They’d both frozen, completely shocked.

 

And then she’d slowly, trembling, peeled the artificial skin patch away from his wrist to read the numbers they both knew would be there. 00:24:00.

 

Tony had watched, dumbstruck, helpless, as the best thing in his entire life unraveled before him. It was his fault but not in the way he’d imagined, not in a way he could apologize for or fix.

 

“Why didn’t you _tell me_?” Pepper had backed away when he tried to touch her face, the freckles on her nose standing out more than usual against her pale skin. She’d been working too much. “Was I just some distraction, some pastime before your timer went off and you drove off into the sunset without me?”

 

How could he explain that the last time he’d thought about his soulmate was the night before Yinsen had helped him operate on his own chest?

 

He’d taken off the skin patch for the first time since he’d reached puberty and run his fingers over the numbers. _I’m sorry,_ he’d whispered in the dark, listening to Yinsen’s quiet breathing even out, listening to the insistent ticking of the pacemaker keeping his reluctant heart going, _I’m sorry that I’m probably going to die soon and you’ll wake up with a line of faded zeros, years before you were supposed to._

 

 _What an awful thing_. Tony had mourned for his unknown soulmate, all hazy with pain and lack of oxygen. _The promise of a happy future one moment, and the next just—_

He’d fallen asleep before ever finishing the thought.

 

His father had insisted he wear a skin patch shortly after his numbers had manifested on his thirteenth birthday to protect him from the press, and anyone who might try and trick him with false countdown implants and faked electrical shocks. It’d happened before, though it never worked for long. The longest case he’d ever heard of had been three months and the mark had been struggling with dementia.

 

“A good con will have figured out how to take half your money by then,” His father had snorted, barely looking up from his desk. Tony remembers that day clearly—his last day of high school and he’d been so different already, he’d just wanted to have this one thing. This one essential human thing that would prove he was just like everyone else.

 

“You’ll thank me one day.” And he was dismissed.

 

Tony thinks of the way Pepper’s smell clings to his sheets in the morning, the way her freckles distort when she scrunches her nose in annoyance, her little smiles, the smug way she asks _will that be all, Mr. Stark?_ after they’ve made love.

 

 _Thanks dad_ , he thinks bitterly.

 

Through his suffocating self-pity, he hears the doorbell. _Pepper._ Pain spikes briefly behind his eyes but he ignores his headache and hurries to the front door, trying to smooth down the front of his shirt and pat down his hair. _She came back_. He tries to shakes off the sluggishness of his hangover and composes a hurried apology, tries to cram together all the words he was too shocked to say last time.

 

_Pepper, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Please don’t leave me._

 

He opens the door. It’s Coulson.

 

“Rough night?”

 

Coulson speaks with a bland impassiveness that makes it impossible to gauge any deeper meaning. But his eyes are sharp, taking in every detail of Tony’s disheveled appearance and obvious disappointment, categorizing and storing the information for later use.

 

Tony should make a joke, play it off, mis-direction.

 

“Fuck off,” he says instead and brings up both hands to rub in vain at the pressure in his temples. It doesn’t help and he’s tired of playing games. “I’m not in the mood.”

 

He senses rather then sees Coulson stiffen in surprise.

 

Tony follows the man’s gaze and realizes that his wrist is still exposed, glowing innocently 00:02:04 and casting soft light against his face. He quickly drops his arm but it’s too late, the damage is done. He feels sick and vulnerable inside. Just one more detail Shield can use against him, to control him, to _catalogue_ him.

 

“Not even once,” Howard had told him, gripping his wrist so hard it would leave bruises, little slivers of light from his number glowing through his father’s knuckles. Howard’s breath reeked of alcohol. He’d be so excited to show his dad, to prove that he was a grown-up now, with his grown-up timer. He was so excited to prove that he was worthy of being _loved_.

 

His dad got up to fill his glass, stopping to look at his old war pictures hung up on the wall. Tony can still remember his reflection in the glass, tear-stained, confused and young enough to still be disappointed. “Fuck up once, and that’s it. You’ve got to be better, faster, smarter. You’ve got to be like _him_.”

 

But no matter what he did, Tony never was.

 

Once, when he was still in college and just figuring out what sex was and how easy it was to get when your last name was Stark, he’d woken up to fingers trying to pry the skin patch off his arm. In shock, he’d pushed the girl off the bed and she’d started crying, saying that a reporter had offered to pay off her student loans if she could find out his timercode.

 

He can’t remember her name anymore, but it hadn’t been until Pepper that he’d been able to fall asleep with someone again, although Tony admits that even then it was usually do to being on the brink of mental and physical collapse. Still, it was a good feeling. He’ll miss it.

 

“Why are you here, Coulson?” Tony asks, and feels oddly detached from his own voice. Like the world has ended but his body hasn’t caught on yet and continues walking around out of habit. “I thought I got kicked off the guest list. Tony Stark, not recommended. Or did Fury finally admit he gets bored without me?”

 

“Oh, things are never boring at Shield.” Coulson says, cryptically. “And there’s someone I think you should meet.”

 

 

\--

 

 

\--

 

 

They exit the nondescript black government-issue plane with its distinct lack of hot tub or mini bar and step onto the busy landing strip of the Sheild building. From the outside it looks like a sucessful advertisting firm, one of many in this part of New York.

 

Tony glances at the dwindling numbers on his wrist and realizes with no small amount of bitterness that _of course_ his soulmate would work for Shield.

 

“Just my luck I’d end up with some fucking paper pusher.” Tony says out loud, trying to blow off steam and get a rise out of Coulson, the patron fucking saint of paper pushers but the older man just ignores him.

 

He scowls, picturing Fury’s face when he finds out he’ll finally have a direct contact to Tony Stark to report back about his activities.

 

He hadn’t put his skin patch back on. What was the point? It would all be over soon and he could find a place to sit still for a moment, alone, just him and the pulse of the reactor in the semi-darkness trying to reestablish equilibrium. There’s never been any solid ground for him to stand on, so he’s learned to fly. Tony straightens his shoulders defiantly. He will get through this without revealing any more weaknesses.

 

Coulson doesn’t wait to check if he’s following, wind buffeting them from both sides until they enter the building.

 

He wishes briefly that he’d had the chance to brush his hair, change into a different shirt, pop a few aspirin. Ideally, he wouldn’t be meeting his soulmate looking like he just spent a night hitting the club but what the hell. They all know his reputation. He winks and shoots a group of female cadets a cheeky grin.

 

What’s the point in changing, when nobody wants to forgive or forget?

 

Despite his best efforts, Tony finds himself unconsciously rubbing at the glowing numbers, hiding them from view. From the curious glances thrown his way as the agent leads him down a maze of hallways.

 

Coulson notices and Tony grits his teeth and forces himself to let go.

 

Eventually the stream of Shield hive workers thins to a trickle as they head deeper into the building. Coulson increases his pace, Tony matching him reluctantly. What the point in hurrying? It was fate, after all. The whole point was that there was nothing you could do but sit back and watch it happen.

_Pepper_ , he thinks, his heart still breaking. He wonders if she’ll take him back after he turns down whoever he’s about to meet. She deserves better.

 

They must be underground by now. Tony feels oddly uncomfortable imagining the layers of concrete over his head pressing down on him like the metal circle in his chest, making it hard to breathe, making his lungs shrivel, his numbers ticking faster now, slipping like quicksand, too fast, and there are no exits this is it he can’t he _can’t_ —

 

“Aww, Coulson, if you were trying to get me to yourself, all you had to do was ask.” Tony keeps his voice steady through the rising panic, winking at Coulson and trying on his favorite salacious leer. “One last go before the I meet my soulmate, what do you say? Help a guy out.”

 

The agent just cocks his head slightly, with those unreadable eyes.

 

“So you plan on being faithful then?”

 

Tony’s fake leer stiffens, but he manages to hang on. Coulson always manages to draw something out of him he wasn’t trying to show.

 

“Sure, if they’re hot.” Tony says, a beat too late for Coulson to buy it.

 

The agent brings them to an abrupt stop outside a nondescript metal door but Tony notices the hinges are reinforced with a special steel alloy he invented for them. He feels a chill run down his spine and wonders how long it would take someone to realize he was missing now that Pepper is gone. _The first twenty-four hours are critical_ , says the stupid part of his brain that’s watched too much CSI: Miami.

 

 _Get a fucking grip_ , Tony orders himself. He’s a goddamn superhero.

 

“Come on, the suspense is killing me,” Tony says with a smirk, folding his arms. Coulson gives him a searching look, before nodding and opening the door.

 

“After you.”

 

 

\--

 

 

 

\--

 

 

Tony doesn’t even register the _ding ding ding_ at first over the whirring and clicking of the medical equipment hooked up to the man on the bed.

 

He doesn’t register anything really, but shock. Because he knows this man. Has seen that handsome face with it’s strong jawline and fluttery eyelashes and the hidden dimples grinning down at him from the walls in black and white since he was old enough to crawl.

 

“Shield recovered his body a month ago,” Coulson says quietly, behind him but the words don’t make sense, _can’t_ make sense. “The serum kept him alive, frozen in the ice. We’ve been thawing him out.”

 

Without meaning to, Tony crosses the room. His mind is a mess of half-questions and absolute disbelief. Captain America, his soulmate.

 

“There must be some mistake.” He barely recognizes his own voice. He licks his numb lips. “I mean, he had a soulmate back in the day, right? This has to be some sort of glitch, some sort of mistake.”

 

Coulson’s voice is tinged with annoyance when he answers, “Our scientists don’t know. They’re still working on an answer.”

 

For the first time, Tony takes in the medical equipment hooked up to the Captain. They look like leaches, hooked up to his skin and his hands curl at his side involuntarily. He glares at the monitor showing the steady spike of his heart rate and blood pressure.

 

“Is he… okay?” Tony forces his voice to be as steady and unconcerned as possible.

 

“Physically, yes.” Coulson sighs. “But he hasn’t woken up yet.”

 

Without thinking about it, Tony reaches out and gently brushes his fingertips against his soulmate’s face. The shock is instant, all-consuming. A hot, electric feeling crashes through him like a force of nature. It _is_ a force of nature.

 

 _How could anyone fake this?_ he thinks desperately, fighting to remain standing. He’s out of breath, his nerves tingling with the aftershock. He’s struck suddenly with the crazy, overwhelming urge to climb under the hospital sheets and wrap himself as close as possible around his soulmate and never let go.

 

He takes a step back, trying to clear his head.

 

He’d heard that the chemical reaction after bonding was intense but this, this almost _violent_ need for closeness was stronger than he was expecting. Than he was prepared for.

 

A harassed looking doctor pushes him aside before he can does anything stupid, and Tony realizes suddenly that the mechanical beeping and whirring around them has increased. On the monitor, his soulmate’s heart rate is a beautiful double-time pattern of ups and downs. Emotions still going haywire, Tony wants to print out the pattern out and frame it.

 

“Stark.”

 

Relieved for the distraction, Tony turns to see Fury looming like a human-shaped thunderstorm in the doorframe. Underneath his bland expression, Coulson looks pleased with himself. He hands a thin, unmarked manila folder to his boss who takes it with a low grunt.

 

“We need to talk.” The Director says, beckoning. With a last, conflicted look towards the hospital bed, Tony follows him into the corridor.

 

Coulson shuts the door behind him but even through the metal he feels it. The pull to complete the bond, which wants to snap him forward like elastic, raw and buzzing right under the skin. It won’t stop until they kiss and the connection settles in their bio-chemistry—the science is still unclear on the why and how, but the what has been the center of every romantic Hollywood drama since before time. True love’s first kiss.

 

Tony feels a little lightheaded, but then he also hasn’t consumed anything but chocolate cake and booze in almost thirty-eight hours. He’s suddenly incredibly grateful that Captain America was knocked out cold and hadn’t met him like this, bleary-eyed and still smelling faintly of Pepper underneath the whiskey.

 

He runs his tongue along the roof of his stale-tasting mouth, grateful that he’ll have a chance to brush his teeth before completing the bond and freezes suddenly with his hands trying to brush out the tangles in his hair, as he realizes that he is _planning to complete the bond_.

 

Which, of course, he _can’t_. As if in protest, the tug under his skin flares suddenly like like a second shockwave. Tony sways with it.

 

Fury’s eyes flick back to the door, darkening.

 

“A plane is waiting for you up top,” He says, gesturing and begins back up the corridor. Tony hesitates for the barest moment, and forces himself to follow. The incomplete bond whispers under his skin.

 

“You know, it was Howard’s technology that ended up finding him.” Fury’s good eye narrows slightly, searching his face for something as Tony catches up.

 

“Well, dad always said he’d die trying.” Tony instinctively tenses at the mention of his father, hates _hates_ that he can’t stop the bitterness from leaking into his voice. But whatever reaction Fury was hoping for, he’s disappointed, and after a long pause, he abruptly changes tact.

 

“There has never been a recording of a person having more than one soulmate,” Fury says, still watching him closely. “They are set to respond to one person, and one person only.”

 

Tony glances back down the hallway, despite himself, before they turn a corner and the door is lost from view.

 

“Do they have any guesses about—” He makes an all-encompassing gesture. “This?”

 

A thought strikes him suddenly, flooding him unexpectedly with a hot, uncomfortable feeling a lot like jealousy.

 

“Wait, his first soulmate is dead right? I mean, they’d be at least seventy by now even if they weren’t but they can’t still be kicking, or the timer never would’ve reset. If it really reset.”

 

The corner of Fury’s mouth twists downward in a grimace, and he glances at the unmarked file.

 

“Yeah. Roger’s soulmate is dead.”

 

Tony doesn’t miss the passive aggressive, singular use of “soulmate”. Something bitter and ugly twists in his stomach. He is for a moment, murderously angry at whoever came before him. _Mine_ , his instincts scream.

 

 _Not gonna happen_ , Tony reminds himself. Whatever this is between them is a glitch. A quirk of a still misunderstood science. There is no universe where Captain America will want him. _If he even wakes up._

 

“So you know who his soulmate was?”

 

“Yes.” Fury answers curtly. “And it helps explain the current situation.”

 

“Well?” Tony says impatiently. He stops abruptly, forcing Fury to stop and turn around. He realizes Fury looks, for lack of a better word, apprehensive.

 

“Come on,” he whines, “It can’t be that bad. We’re talking about Captain America here. What, was his soulmate Hitler or something? Oh shit.” Tony squints at Fury, half-serious, half-mocking. “It wasn’t really Hitler was it?”

 

“Shut up,” Fury snaps and Tony fights to stop his real grin slipping out over his practiced smirk. It’s way too much fun to mess with the Director, who clearly isn’t used to insubordination anymore.

 

With his patented _why-do-I-put-up-with-your-shit_ sigh, Fury hands over the unmarked file. Tony takes it but doesn’t flip it open immediately, suddenly wary. He doesn’t want to read about Captain’s America first soulmate—his _real_ soulmate, a voice whispers in the back of his mind—with Fury watching him so closely.

 

“Steve Rogers’ soulmate was your father.”

 

 

\--

 

 

 

\--

 

 

 

The words slide over him without touching. Tony frowns, confused. The syllables fit together to make words but he runs the sounds over in his head and hears nothing but white noise. The default smirk feels numb on his face, pins and needles, like it’s melting. He suppresses the urge to touch his mouth and make sure it’s all still there.

 

“Excuse me?” Tony’s voice is amazingly steady, pleasant even.

 

Fury looks uncomfortable. “Howard met Rogers after he was given the serum. It was kept secret to keep him safe, but also because male-male bonding pairs weren’t as… normalized as they are now. There was some concern that the knowledge would hurt the propaganda effort.”

 

Tony is nodding politely, still smiling. He probably looks quite manic.

 

“The current theory is that when Rogers was in the ice, it effected the chemistry of the timer, putting it in a limbo state. When he reemerged, the bond automatically reset to the closest biological match to Howard Stark.”

 

Tony is still nodding. It feels like Afghanistan, like being held underwater. The words are very far away, distorted and foreign. The buzzing under his skin fills up his head.

 

He is a replacement for Howard. He is a substitute for the original. Even his soulmate, the one essential thing that proved he was human, that he was like _everyone else_ , is corrupted by his father, his father’s choices. But he is _not_ his father. He has spent _years_ not being his father.

 

Then, from far away, Fury’s hand is gripping him hard around the wrist, demanding his attention. He can almost smell the alcohol. Tony doesn’t like being touched, doesn’t like being held down. Tony says nothing, just keeps smiling. Tony is great. Tony is fine.

 

“You can’t tell him, Stark.” Fury’s face is too close to him. They’ll beat him next, Tony thinks dully, sluggishly, but he prefers that to the water. He’d rather bleed out than suffocate. “It will be easier for Captain America to wake up and accept all the other changes, without trying to prepare him for another soulmate.” Trying to prepare him for _you_.

 

Tony is nodding, smiling. His lips are moving.

 

“Sure thing, dad.”

 

Tony turns away, gets on his plane and flies home.


	2. Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, I've been getting the most wonderful response to this story and it's made my entire week. Cheers all :)

Steve wakes up completely and utterly, one moment nothing and the next, eyes open, mouth open, his own heartbeat so loud it feels like the end of the world.

 

“He’s awake,” says the man leaning over him.

 

His body moving on instinct, Steve’s arm is instantly against the doctor’s windpipe—he doesn’t need to see the white lab coat to know what he is, the clinging hospital smell is enough—and he’s sitting up, glaring at the other two armed men across the room.

 

The one in the suit moves towards his gun holster. Steve’s arm tightens around the doctor.

 

“Don’t.” He says, voice icy. His head is swimming. “Where am I?”

 

“Captain—“ The older man begins, the one smart enough not to reach for his weapon. He doesn’t look surprised, or even afraid, just vaguely frustrated. But Steve has never been great at reading facial expressions and the eyepatch is throwing him off.

 

“Don’t.” Steve warns him. “Where am I?”

 

With a put-upon sigh, the man answers, “New York City.”

 

Steve frowns. That doesn’t sound right. Have they won the war already? Is he on leave? The rush of adrenalin is clouding his mind, making it hard to think through what’s happening when his entire body is screaming _move._ He needs to be somewhere else, it’s pulling at him, under the skin, shredding his nerves, he needs to— _they must be drugging me_ , he realizes.

 

Steve rips a handful of tubes out from his arm and the doctor reflexively cries out, “Mr. Rogers, please, those are—“

 

He increased the pressure against the doctor’s neck and he quickly falls silent. They know his name. Are they good guys? Are they HYDRA? There’s something wrong about the room, about the appearance of the men but his mind is moving too quickly, too frantically to isolate what. The pressure to _move-move-move_ pulls him towards the door.

 

He stands up, dragging the doctor backwards with him, unwilling to turn his back even for a moment. Where is his shield?

 

“Rogers,” The man in the eyepatch says, placating, spreading his empty palms. “I assure you that you are in no danger. We are on your side.”

 

Steve ignores him, opening the door to peer into the hallway. The coast is clear.

 

“Boss?” The man in the suit says tentatively.

 

His superior shakes his head. “Don’t let—“

 

Steve uses the distraction to shove the doctor in their direction and duck out the door. He takes off at a dead sprint down the hallway, deciding for speed over stealth and follows the pull of _move-move-move_ through the building.

 

The air pressure changes subtly and Steve realizes that he was being held underground but instead of heading in the direction of the ground level exit, something inexplicable pushes him upward. Mind still clouded by whatever they were injecting into him—and it must have been _strong_ , to be affecting him so much even with the serum—Steve decides to go with his instincts. He encounters nobody, though he can’t shake the feeling of being watched. He suspects the man with the eyepatch had ordered the way cleared.

 

 _Good_ , he thinks, and doubles his pace.

 

When he bursts, full speed, through the last set of doors onto the flat, open track of an airplane landing strip, the sunlight is almost a physical shock.

 

The rooftop is not cleared of people; men and women in strange fashions are staring open-mouthed at him like he’s some sort of—and the view past them, the buildings, the _overwhelming wrongness_ —it’s New York, it is, he _feels_ it, but unfamiliar—everything is—and in front of him, a sleek black plane the likes of which he’s never seen before hovers a moment, before disappearing over the alien skyline.

 

Abruptly the urge to _move_ lessens, no longer holding him up. His body shudders, his senses overloading.

 

 _Where am I?_ Steve thinks, and falls to his knees.

 

Behind him the man with the eye-patch approaches, making sure to maintain a careful distance. Steve is too tired, too confused to fight.

 

“Welcome to the future, Captain.”

 

 

\--

 

 

 

\--

 

 

 

Steve sets his bag of Shield-issued clothing down on the bed and takes a look around at his temporary home. The man with the eyepatch— _Fury_ , he reminds himself—had promised they were working on finding him an apartment in his old neighborhood.

 

He’s not sure that’s a good idea. Steve’s coping better than he thought, maybe it’s just the sheer overwhelming shock, but so far what he’s found most disturbing is when the newness of the future gets mixed with the familiar of his past.

 

 _Everyone I have ever known is dead_ , he thinks.

 

Involuntarily, his fingers twitch towards the line of zeroes at his wrist. Unlike the faint glow during countdown, an inactive timer is faded, like a an old scar. Whether you’ve met them or they’ve died, it’s the same. The countdown is simply over.

 

Steve twists his wrist towards the light to thrown the numbers into sharper relief. Something hot and painful twists in his gut, forcing him to look away. Of all the losses he has had to endure since waking up, this one he can’t seem to shake.

 

Steve has known, has _always_ known that the chances of his living long enough to meet his soulmate was slim.

 

Back before the serum, before the war even, when he was tiny sickly little Steve Rogers, his timer had manifested overnight a few weeks after his fourteenth birthday. That was pretty late for a timer, but he’d always lagged behind his peers. He’s woken up, his wrist burning hot, not painful, just an overstimulation of sensation and he’d known what it was immediately from Bucky’s description and he’d been so excited, so _excited_ until—he’d cried himself sick that night.

 

He closes his eye briefly, remembering the warm press of his mother’s hand against his forehead. She knew how to hold him properly, so that she could take most of his weight without getting the sick all over herself. Usually she hummed half-lullabies in his ear but that night she was too sad, whispering _oh Steve_ in that voice he will later come to associate with her deathbed. It hurts, still.

 

 _Seventy years_ , little Stevie had cried miserably into her hair, every sob making his stick-figure ribs rattle like a bag of sticks, _I don’t even know anybody that old, mama_.

 

Steve shakes away the whisper of _ohsteveohsteveoh_ and tugs his sleeve back down over his wrist and forces himself to ignore it and continue unpacking. He needs to be doing something, the faint hum, the need to _move_ still under his skin, less now than before. More a dull throbbing, the constant beginning of a headache, and he knows the minute he stops to think he’ll fall apart. It was like that in the war too.

 

But despite himself, his thoughts drift back to the the line of zeroes. Steve has gotten used to the sight since the serum but there’s a difference now that he knows it’s _real_.

 

As if to mock him, his fingers brush against a folder at the bottom of the small duffel bag. He pulls it out before he can decide otherwise and flips it open to read “Howard Stark: deceased”.

 

His eyes automatically scroll down, looking for the line he hopes will not be there but finds anyway: “Soulmate: Steve Rogers”.

 

Steve sighs, tossing the file aside. He allows himself to lie back on the bed and look up at the ceiling. It looks freshly painted. _Only the best for Captain America_ , he thinks a little bitterly. He closes his eyes but it doesn’t help.

 

He knows logically that there is no reason for Howard to have come forward with the truth after he was presumed dead but it bothers him, has always bothered him to lie about something so personal. But it had been necessary at the time.

 

Sick little Stevie Rogers hadn’t shown anyone but Bucky his timer. That was the first time his friend had gotten him drunk. It didn’t help, and he’ll remember the spanking Miss Barnes gave them even if he sleeps another fifty years away, but at least he knew he’d always have Bucky. Nobody else bothered to find out and Steve was so prone to illness that he was usually bundled up in long sleeves and jackets most of the time anyway. So he’d scooped up all his secret daydreams into a little box in the back of his mind and made a life for himself without it.

 

He’d tried to enlist over and over again, tried to take the place of someone who had a soulmate who would miss them but nobody would bother looking at him twice.

 

And then he’d met Howard.

 

_“Look, kid.”_

_Steve straightens indignantly at the words despite being naked from the waist up and feeling mighty uncomfortable with his odd countdown glowing at his wrist. Steve narrows his eyes at the young man across from him; though he might be smaller, they were probably the same age._

_He just wants this too be over. Medical examinations have always been humiliating._

_“My name’s Steve, not kid.” He grits his teeth. He might be weak but nobody who says it to his face will be able to do so without a fight._

_The man shrugs, looking impatient. “Howard Stark.”_

_He taps Steve’s medical file, the large stack of forms that all have DENIED stamped in red across them before glancing at the timer on Steve’s wrist with such shrewd calculation that he finds himself flinching back, covering the numbers with his other hand._

_Howard sighs, like Steve is being childish._

_“I requested to be the one to do your physical evaluation, Steve.”_

_“Why?” Steve asks, utterly confused._

_“Because Erskine likes you.” Howard states, like this explains everything. Steve is still confused but a hot spark of something like hope begins to unfold in the pit of his stomach. Maybe it will not matter that he is weak and under-developed and doesn’t always follow orders and doesn’t always get along with the other boys and—_

_“But,” Howard continues and the unfolding hope abruptly hardens and becomes stone. “He refuses to conduct the experiment unless the subject has either lost their soulmate, or their soulmate consents to the experiment.”_

_Steve’s limbs feel heavy. His eyelids itch, like he’s about to cry. He swallows the feeling down, returning Howard’s even stare._

_“Well, that disqualifies me.” Steve tries to lift his wrist up but can’t. “Clearly.”_

_Howard pauses a moment, as if rolling the words in his mouth before speaking._

_“It doesn’t have to.”_

_Steve just stares at him, uncomprehending. With an annoyed grunt, Howard yanks the sleeve of his white lab coat up to elbow and brandishes his wrist. The line of faded zeroes are hard to distinguish against his tanned skin._

_“I lost mine, couple years ago.” Howard says, shortly. It makes him angry to talk about it. “Never met, but I tracked her down after.”_

_Howard pulls his sleeve back into place before Steve can think what to say. It’s not uncommon, especially with the war now. Girls all over the country waking up in the middle of the night, wrists burning, with a line of zeroes where they once had glowing numbers, knowing somewhere out there someone isn’t making it home to them. Those with active timers have been flocking to the port cities, desperate for a chance to meet their other half for even just a moment before the men are sent out to the front._

_Howard is looking at him like he’s expecting a response. Steve shakes himself._

_“You want to pretend to be my soulmate then?” There’s no point beating around the bush. There isn’t time._

_Howard nods, expression flickering for a second. Steve can’t tell with what, he’s never been very good at reading people._

_“How?” Steve tries again and suceeds in lifting his wrist to show off the freakishly large number. The biggest he’s ever heard of. The heaviness in his limbs has dissipated, replaced by a strange tension, nervous but determined. It’s the way he feels before a fight he knows he’s going to lose. So, the way he feels before a fight. “It’s clear you ain’t mine.”_

_His expression still edged with something Steve can’t identify, Howard reaches into the pocket of his lab coat and withdraws a small rectangular patch of what looks like human skin. Steve recoils._

_“It’s synthetic,” Howard tells him, annoyed. “The British developed them for espionage, to hide the identities of their agents or help them assume new ones.”_

_Steve nods, slowly, inching forward again. He takes the strange patch from Howard and examines it, holds it up to the light. His artist’s eye informs him that it’s not an exact match for his skin color but it’s pretty close._

_“How long does it last?” He asks finally._

_“Up to three months. I’ll provide you with a fresh one when the time comes.” Howard answers, studying him closely. He changes tact abruptly. “You seem remarkably calm about this.”_

_Steve blinks up at the other man, and realizes that it’s true._

_“I—“ Steve takes deep breathe, trying to get his thoughts in order. “I need this.”_

_He tries to say more, to explain the utter agony of watching everyone around him going out to fight, to die, and him sitting useless and alone at home as the apartment falls apart around him. How frustrating it is to be born with the urge to protect and have no ability to do so. Steve has been fighting since the day he was born, too early and too small and too sick. The doctor had advised his mother not to name him so that she wouldn’t get attached. But he’s still here, heart beating through sheer will._

_His throat closes suddenly and none of the words come out but Howard seems to understand anyway. He nods once, and steps back towards the door._

_“I’ll inform Dr. Erskine that I give my consent.” Howard says over his shoulder and gestures towards the patch of skin in his hand. “You should make sure that’s in place before you leave here, just in case.”_

_“Wait!” Steve says, jumping to his feet. Howard pauses, looking irritated._

_“What are you getting out of this?”_

_Howard tilts his head, considering the question for so long that Steve thinks he’s not going to answer. But then, with a drawn out sigh, the other man replies._

_“If you survive, it will help speed up my plans considerably to have a super soldier as my soulmate. The default clearance level alone, well.” Howard shrugs, sweeping him with a look both incredibly impersonal and deeply bitter. It’s as if he’s been cut open like a science experiment and found disappointing. Steve doesn’t flinch. He’s been getting that look for years._

_Howard turns away and whispers, almost to himself._

_“Her name was Ruth Carbonell.”_

_And then Steve is alone again, half-naked and uncomfortable with the glow of his odd countdown at his wrist as he holds the promise of the future in his hand and wonders if he’s stupid enough to take it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The truth revealed! Fucking Howard, guys.  
> Also, kudus to anyone who gets the Carbonell reference. If not, don't worry, it shall become clear later on.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta-ed. All mistakes are my own.

Steve felt angry, and that was good.

That was the most he’d felt since waking up, full of static and the utter overwhelming need to _move_ , the most he felt since falling to his knees on the rooftop of a city he’d once called home.

The future was overwhelming. Not because of the hero-worship, though it felt awkward to be confronted with it again after the easy camaraderie of war, and not only because of the rawness of his loss, the loss of an entire world, which choked him at odd moments, sudden and oppressive.

But because he could not figure out where he fit into it. They didn’t need a man like him anymore. He’d read about the hydrogen bombs that ended the fight against the Japanese, had held back angry tears when he saw the pictures of the dead. The tutor Shield had assigned him had covered the advancements in military gear, guns, stealth operations, radar technology, bombs. They always pointed out to him what Howard had contributed.

Steve always tried to smile, thinking back to their first conversation. _Was this what you were planning all along?_ Steve would wonder, bitter.

Unconsciously, he rubs the faint zeroes on his wrist again.

“He never stopped looking for you.”

Steve doesn’t react to Coulson's remark, biting down hard on the tip of his tongue. He knows they mean well, at least he knows Coulson means well, but the words leave a bitter taste in his mouth. He should be used to these remarks but they’re always jarring. In his time, their supposed relationship was never openly addressed, especially by the brass.

Instead of forcing another vague answer, Steve’s eyes follow a heavily guarded black box down the hallway, led by a squadron of frowning soldiers who force people into a wide berth around them. There’s something off about it—the container, the hard lines in the faces of the men. His old instincts prickle in his gut as the group exits through a heavily barred door.

But many things feel off to him now. Steve exhales and turns away.

He realizes, embarrassed, that his fists were clenched tight enough to mark his palms with a dozen little crescents. They’re pretty, tiny indents instead of the slightly raised skin of his timer.

Steve shakes away the thought, following Coulson into an open control room.

He resists the urge to whistle. It was impressive. The sort of dime novel science fiction scene that Bucky used to buy them to share. They’d read they until the pages started falling out, trying to image what it would be like to grow up and see the future. But that was before the war.

“—Captain here is sure to understand.”

Pulling himself forcibly from the rush of memories, Steve turns to answer the newcomer and feels all the air rush out of the room. Like when he little and ran too fast, like waking from a fever dream, like maybe this whole waking up in the future thing was just a dream too.

He stands there for a moment, sucker-punched, gaping like an idiot. Something prickling under his skin.

“Sorry,” Steve said finally, holding out his hand. “I’m Steve Rogers.”

The man who looks like Howard eyes his hand with a detached emotionless expression. The practiced mask of businessmen and doctors. Steve remembers what _that_ expression looked like on _that_ face, had seen it just a few weeks ago in his time. Had always seen it like that, a robot pretending to be a human, to have a beating human heart.

It makes him feel young again, his hand still hanging out in the air like a thread, a thread of something.

“ _Tony_ Stark.” Clinical, dismissive. Like Steve was being inspected and found lacking. It’d been a long time since someone had talked to him like that, that day in the medical tent with Steve half-naked and shivering. Wondering if he should be brave or stupid, and what the difference was. The last day he was helpless.

Steve drops his hand, ignoring the rise of heat in his gut. He’s angry, stupid angry, that fifty years and a man apart this Stark can make him feel just as unwanted as his father.

He tries again.

“Howard was a great man. You look just like him.”

Whatever Steve was expecting, the singular explosion of emotion shattering the careful arrangement of Stark’s face into a sneer of deep and utter loathing was nowhere close. He takes an involuntarily half-step forward before Coulson pushed between them, as if to protect Steve, which was both insulting and slightly endearing.

“Stark—“ Coulson said, warningly, but the other man simply threw Steve one last gut-wrenchingly bitter look and stalked off. Steve could heard the angry footsteps long after he was out of sight. His heart rate was still elevated.

“I should have warned you.” Coulson said, frowning after the man. There was something guilty about his expression. “Howard is a difficult subject for Mr. Stark. Best not to bring it up. However, if you want to talk to Howard’s old friends, I can arrange—“

Steve did not want to talk about Howard.

As he dragged his eyes away from the exit, all he think was that he was wrong. Even though the son had inherited his father’s face, he had never seen Howard look so _alive_.

 

\--

 

 

\--

 

Steve feels wrung out, paper-thin, like one of his mother’s faded handkerchiefs hung up over the clothesline to dry.

The last few days have been quiet, more so than his life has been in, well, before he enlisted in the war. Even the days on the road as a dancing monkey had been loud and hectic, and there’d been the letters—from the fans, from Bucky—but despite how big and shiny the future is, Steve can’t help but think it’s a little lonely.

He tries to make eye contact with a young woman walking his way down the narrow street but she doesn’t look up from her phone. Her hang bag clips his arm as they pass each other.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, without looking up.

He sighs. It’s about what he’d come to expect from modern human contact. Without conscious thought, his feet continue forward.

His body has been betraying him a lot since emerging from the ice. It took Steve a good while to get the hang of his new abilities when the experiment had first been successful. He’d walked around stubbing his toes and fingers, even sprained his wrist briefly after an embarrassing accident on the obstacle course before he’d readjusted to his new reach. And strength. He broken a dozen glasses in the first week alone. It had been an endless source of amusement for Peggy.

Steve remembers, suppressing a guilty grimace, when he’d first been placed with his troupe of dancers and realized that his new height gave him a very proactive new angle. The back of his neck gets hot just thinking about it and he places a cool hand against the skin, wincing.

Since waking, he’s been fighting a dull ache at the base of his neck which likes to crawl up into his temples. Like the constant blossoming of a headache, which the serum was supposed to suppress. Sometimes, lying sleepless in the dark at night, he wonders if the doctors damaged him somehow. They like to change the subject when he asks them about his recovery.

Maybe he’ll pick up more aspirin on the way home. He metabolizes them too fast for it to help but he feels better being able to do something, even something useless.

“Back already, hun?” A female voice, familiar.

Steve turns and finds, to his surprise, that he’s in front of his favorite coffee shop. He manages a smile for the waitress, for Emily. She must be working an all-day shift again. She’d given him a coffee on the house in exchange for a quick sketch of her early that morning.

“No sketchbook this time?” Emily looks disappointed, squinting at the pockets of his jeans like he could pull one out of thin air.

Steve looks down at his empty hands, and curls them into fists. He hadn’t meant to come this far. He’d just stepped outside his depressing little apartment for a bit of fresh air and his mind had drifted while he walked.

“Nope,” he says regretfully, his hands itching for a pen at the thought.

Emily grins at him. “Oh, don’t look so sad. I’ll bring you a pen and a couple napkins. Let me just clean up your table.”

She hurries off, wiping down a small table in the corner, grabbing two milkshake glasses that are still half-full. Steve shakes his head. It astonishes him how wasteful people of this decade are. A memory bubbles up inside of Steve of him and Bucky and Bucky’s youngest sister all sharing a chocolate milkshake; he’d insisted on sharing even though it was his birthday and Bucky could never say no to sweets—he pushes the memory back down.

His therapist told him it was unhealthy, that it was alright to mourn but Steve hasn’t been back. He just has to push through it, stop drowning every new experience with floods of past events. His therapist liked to tell him to let go, but Steve knows how steep the fall is. He can’t even see the bottom.

Steve takes his favorite seat, back against the bricks and, despite himself, his eyes immediately track upward, finding the thing that brought him here in the first place. The heat floods across the back of his neck again.

Stark Tower.

It looks like he thought the future would. It’s easier somehow to look at than the street outside his apartment. His fingers twitch.

Emily comes back with a stack of napkins thick as a cheeseburger and a fistful of different pens and catches him staring up at the sky. She lays her things on the table and wipes her hands on the side of her pants, gesturing towards the tower.

“You just missed him, you know.”

Steve twitches, heat rising up into his cheeks. “What? I’m not—“

“Relax!” Emily laughs at his panicked expression. “A lot of our customers are fans trying to get a look at him. The occasional stalker, the occasionally tabloid journalist, they’re hard to tell apart actually but mostly just normal people, you know, people that were saved by Ironman. You don’t look like someone who needs to be saved, though.”

She winks at the prominent muscles of his biceps and he forces himself to relax.

“You’d be surprised,” Steve says, looking back up at the sky.

 

\--

 

 

\--

 

Steve doesn’t notice until the battle is halfway over.

It comes at him with crackling blue electricity, dead eyes and dead skin, it’s left arm hanging in useless splinters. They don’t bleed like humans.

 _They aren’t humans_ , Steve reminds himself, his thoughts disjointed and painful. The back of his head is in agony. Where is his shield? His fingers feel clumsy, scrabbling in the wreckage as he crawls backward, away from the thing.

He swallows, mouth full of dust and tries to call for back-up. The black edges of his vision threaten to swallow him completely. _Concussion_ , he thinks sluggishly, as his hand finds the edge of broken car door. He tenses, ready to fling it at his attacker but feels a streak of heat—a white beam—slice through the air next to him and then there is nothing but a smoking corpse at his feet.

Steve’s dizziness begins to clear, a new surge of energy pulling him upright. _Move_ , his instincts scream and he listens, yanking the still-crackling weapon from the dead embrace before heading back towards the main intersection. Steve allows himself a moment to find the red-and-gold glint above him.

 _Your boomerang’s on the left_ , says Tony’s voice in his ear. Smooth sarcastic drawl.

Steve turns to find his shield sticking out of the side of an overturned vehicle. He yanks it free, torn muscle in his shoulder protesting.

He wants to say thank you, tries to, but instead all that comes out is: _You’re out of position, Stark._

He hears screaming close by and takes off at a dead sprint. The sound makes the tender spot at the base of his skull throb but when he touches the back of his head, the blood is already dry.

Static over the comms and then, _sorry Captain Attitude, I won’t save you next time._

But the thing is, he _does_.

 

\--

 

 

\--

 

It’s almost dark when Steve lets himself back into his apartment.

It’s begun to rain and Steve’s shoes are wet, his socks damp inside them. It reminds him of the war, reminds him of Bucky drying their uniforms over the fire and shoving his wrinkled feet into Dum-Dum’s face. Him stirring the soap, smacking anyone that tried to steal a premature taste. How warm he felt, even in the cold. The laughter.

Steve is busy trying to shove down the unexpected ache of the memory and doesn’t notice the figure sitting on his couch until he almost trips over a pair of legs on the way to the kitchen.

“What—“ Steve moves on instinct, dropping the container of pills to the floor, the rattling loud as gunfire in the silence, startling the figure into a half-shout of surprise before Steve’s arm is pressed against his windpipe, the other hand locked around the man’s wrist and forcing it against the couch.

The man doesn’t resist, his breathing erratic. Soft little puffs of air. Almost painful.

Steve hovers inches over him in the dark, almost trembling. He feels sick with a sudden rush of urges, deep and unfamiliar. To fight, to run, to--

A car drives by in the street, washing the room in a sudden flash of light.

“ _Stark_?”

The man beneath him gives him a crooked smile, almost intimate. Steve has seen him smile a hundred times and knows all of them are lies. This smile, it doesn’t reach his eyes either, but it wasn’t supposed to. There’s something in that.

The light doesn’t do Stark any favors, the harsh illumination deepening the seemingly permanent shadows under his eyes. He looks unhealthy, thinner and leaner. Needy, almost, like a hungry dog.

Then they’re plunged back into darkness.

“What are you doing here?” Steve’s voice is hushed, like they’re keeping some kind of secret.

Stark doesn’t respond, just keeps looking at him. Even in the dark, he looks half-dead. Hollowed out. He looks like Steve feels.

“You—“ Stark’s voice is hoarse, throat humming under the press of Steve’s arm, spreading goosebumps. He realizes suddenly, a flush creeping up his neck, how close they are, his fingers tight around the other man’s wrist, like a parody of holding hands. The closest he’s been to anybody since waking up. “You look _good_.”

The words are angry. An accusation.

Steve jerks backward, letting go of him. He shakes his head, trying to make sense of the situation. His heart is going a little too fast.

“What are you doing here?”

“Enjoying your taste in interior decorating,” The other man replies with a smirk. The familiar expression makes him look less worn out. Maybe it was just a trick of the light. Maybe he’s projecting.

“In the dark?” He realizes how close they’re still standing . Clearing his throat, Steve steps away and turns on the light.

Stark squints irritably, shielding his dark eyes. He scowls up at Steve.

“Trust me, it’s an improvement.”

Steve ignores him, bending to pick up the fallen bottle of pills and tries not to let Stark get under his skin. He tucks them away before the other man can see, suddenly embarrassed. He doesn’t want Stark to think he’s weak.

“What are you doing here?” he repeats.

Stark flashes him the biggest, showiest grin he’s ever seen. Steve can’t help but notice how the light reflects off his glossy white teeth. It makes him angry. Everything about Stark makes him angry.

“Move in with me, Steve.”

**Author's Note:**

> Dramatic gasp. So, did anyone see that coming?


End file.
